5 Tips on How to Achieve Running Success by Setting Goals

Goals are so important when it comes to achieving the next step in your running adventure. Goals are the only way you will find running success. Without them, you can easily slip away into bad habits and starting from scratch again. Read more to find out the 5 tips on how to achieve running success by setting goals.

Your true potential as a runner is available to you but it’s not easy to achieve if you don’t have proper running goals. It’s all about making your dreams into a reality. You know you want to reach your goals, it’s just a matter of putting a plan in place and sticking with it. It doesn’t matter if all you are doing is running for the simple act of relieving stress, it’s still a goal.

Always set running goals to achieve success

Whether you realize it or not, you have already made goals and plans to get what you want out of your running routine. You have the route mapped-out, you know how long you plan on running for and what you want to get out of it.

The basic running goals are already set in place because you know how often you want to run and how long you are going to go for. By reaching for higher goals now, you can get more joy out of your running routine.

5 Tips on How to Achieve Running Success by Setting Goals

The 5 tips below explains how you can achieve running success by setting goals.

1. How to Set Your Running Goals To put it simply, goals have to have personal meaning to you. You can’t have the same goal as someone else because it won’t mean anything to you. Whatever goal you set, it will get accomplished because it’s what you want more than anything. When you set the goals for yourself, you know what you need to do in order to achieve them.

By having goals of your own, it motivates you to want to achieve them because they are personal to you. Training for a goal such as running takes a lot of dedication. If it’s not your own personal goal, you will end up giving up and asking yourself, why you are even doing it in the first place?

2. Make Your Running Goals as Specific as Possible If your goals are too vague, it can be easy to get lost in them. Make your goals as specific as possible, so you know exactly what you’re aiming for and what needs to be done to get there. Is it a marathon you want or do you want to run for the Olympic team? These are two great goals but they are also very different and it takes different planning and goals to achieve each one.

Make your running goals as specific as possible

Depending on the goal you want, determines the kind of training you have to undergo and what steps need to be taken to get you there. If your goals are too basic such as: I want to run faster or longer. It’s really hard then to make a plan around something like that but if you want to achieve something like your first marathon then that’s something a plan can be built around.

3. Make Your Goal Realistic Don’t get me wrong, your goals should always be challenging and a challenge to accomplish. That’s what makes it so awesome when you finally do it. But your goal has to be realistic as well, especially if you are just starting out.

A good way to think of it is that a goal should always be something you have to work harder for but it’s still within your comfort zone. Don’t choose something that is completely out of the realm of possibility because then you are just setting yourself up for disappointment.

You want a goal that challenges you but is also attainable. If your big goal is to break a world record that might be unlikely for you. Word records are broken all the time but not everyone can get to that point.

4. Goals Always Have an Expiration Date A goal always has to have an expiration date, that’s why it’s a goal. There’s always a time element to planning your goals. Whether you want to lose a certain amount of weight by summertime or whether you just want to increase your running time within a week, these are all goals that have a time limit on them.

If you have no deadline you won’t be motivated to accomplish it. But if there’s a deadline in place you will have no choice but to motivate yourself in order to accomplish it on time. If you go around saying that “one day” you would like to accomplish a running goal you will never get there. But if you say you want to run a full marathon in 6 months then chances are you can achieve that goal.

When it comes to a runner’s lifestyle most running goals can be attained in a 3-6 month period.

While you are working towards that big goal, set small term goals throughout the process to get you there. Week by week you will be progressing towards that big goal because of your short term goals. As you go along you can evaluate where you are and how much further you have to go. If at anytime you aren’t moving forward you may just have to postpone the long term goal until you are where you need to be.

5. Goals Keep You Motivated Make sure you always write down your goals so that they are right in front of you to keep you focused. Seeing your goals around you all the time keeps you honest and reminds you of what you are working for.

Tell a few close friends about your goal as they can help to keep you accountable for them. Not only that but they will support and encourage you to complete them. If your friends see you lagging behind on your goals chances are they will give you the butt kick you deserve to get back on track. It’s not always beneficial to tell everyone about your goals because some people can be very unsupportive. But telling your closest friends allows you to be held accountable for your own dreams. These people should be the kind of people that care about your goals and want to help you achieve them.

How do you achieve running success? Share your goals and success stories with us in the comments below.